‘If you try to pray without ceasing because you want to be very pious and good, you will never succeed,’ warns Andrew Murray. There is only one way to a life of unceasing prayer, and it is not found in us, but in Jesus. ‘Christ makes us partakers with Him of His prayer-power and His prayer-life.’ And so it is Jesus who is ‘responsible for our praying without ceasing.’

Murray comes to prayer without ceasing in the last chapter of his classic With Christ in the School of Prayer. There he tells us that in this school:

Christ teaches us to pray by showing us how He does it, by doing it in us, and by leading us to do it in Him and like Him. Christ is everything – the life and the strength – for a never-ceasing prayer life. Seeing Christ’s continuous praying as our life enables us to pray without ceasing.

It is only because Christ’s life is now our life that ‘praying without ceasing can become the joy of heaven here on earth,’ for ‘never-ceasing prayer is the manifestation of the power of the eternal life where Jesus always prays.’

Prayer without ceasing depends entirely upon our union with Christ, and ‘in union with Him’ ceaseless prayer can become ‘a reality, the holiest and most blessed part of our holy and blessed fellowship with God.’

What is a life of ceaseless prayer? Murray writes that it’s a life where ‘the inmost life of the soul is continually rising upward in dependence, faith, longing desire, and trustful expectation.’

Christians are called to a life of prayer. And, D.P. Williams explains, that life of prayer is a life of ‘deeper communion with God.’ Yet, we cannot climb up to communion with God, but can only be welcomed in by God’s grace to us in Jesus and by His Spirit. So, the life of prayer is not our accomplishment, but God’s gift.

We know that this life of prayer is God’s call to us as Christians. And we know that He alone can give this gift. Therefore, we should pray for prayer! We should cry out ‘for the Holy Spirit to come into your spirit to live the life of prayer and Divine fellowship.’ (Yet, in order to cry to the Lord for this, we must first come to the realisation that it isn’t something we can achieve for ourselves, and so ‘be absolutely broken’.)

Public prayer in the prayer meeting relies upon the reality of this hidden life of prayer. It’s not wordiness or length or exuberance that makes public prayer real. If those are the things were looking to, then ‘that is not real prayer at all; if we do that, we are only deceiving ourselves, and it will lead to hypocrisy.’ Christians need to know how to pray to the Lord (and not to an audience of our fellow Christians) when we meet together to pray. To do this will flow out from the hidden life of prayer.

Pastor Dan says that God’s desire for us is:

That we spend time with Him in prayer behind the scene and that every child of God should be a vessel for the Holy Ghost to intercede, and to pray inwardly, and to liberate the inner man into deeper communion with God in the life of prayer, until you lose your words, not because you have not got words, but because your words are lost in the end in groans and sobs unto Him.

He goes on to explain that God yearns for us to ‘be possessed inwardly with the Divine movings of the Holy Spirit’ in the life of prayer. So, the life of prayer isn’t about our work or our accomplishment, but rather, it’s about the work of the Holy Spirit within us, as the Spirit helps us pray and intercedes through us (Rom. 8:26-27).

Through Jesus and by the Spirit, the Father invites us into this life of prayer. In Jesus and by the Spirit we can receive this precious gift of ‘deeper communion with God in the life of prayer.’

The Bible tells us to ‘pray without ceasing’ (1 Thess. 5:17), ‘praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit’ (Eph. 6:18). Jesus Himself taught ‘that men always ought to pray and not lose heart’ (Lk 18:1). Perhaps, though, we are tempted to skip over the words ‘without ceasing’ and ‘always.’ Surely that’s just impossible anyway, we might think. And yet, it is the plain teaching of God’s Word. Those who trust in Christ are called to ‘pray without ceasing.’

The early Pentecostals saw the importance of this. Ps Arthur Lewis compared prayer to breathing in an article in the Riches of Grace in 1936. ‘Our breathing is normal under ordinary conditions,’ he wrote, ‘but when extra bodily effort is demanded, it deepens, becomes abnormal.’ Ps Lewis used this difference between all-the-time normal breathing and specifically needed abnormal breathing to explain the difference between two types of prayer (which he called prayer and supplication).

‘Prayer is our normal breathing … but Supplication is our abnormal breathing,’ he wrote. This prayer that he compared to normal breathing is prayer, which like normal breathing, should be going on all the time. ‘Pray always (or else we cannot live).’ The supplication, which is like the abnormal breathing when extra bodily effort is needed, is the prayer needed at specific times and on specific occasions, whether set daily prayer at home alone, or a prayer meeting together with the church. Supplication is necessary and very important, but, Ps Lewis says, it depends on the normal breathing of constant prayer. ‘Our ordinary prayer, if real, opens the way for our supplication to be effectual, and with thanksgiving.’ Our ‘natural prayer’ during the day ‘will prepare our “lungs” to make the special effort’ of supplication.

The possibility of prayer without ceasing – of praying like breathing – depends entirely upon ‘the glorious consummation of Calvary.’ It is only as we look to Christ crucified for us that we can know ‘a restfulness’ which enables a vital life of prayer. Such restfulness in Christ ‘enables us to bear the burden of need, however great it may be, before His Throne with thankfulness.’

As we grow in a life of prayer without ceasing, we will grow in the confidence that the Father hears our prayer, not only by the visible answers to prayer He gives, but also ‘as evidenced by that quiet assurance in our hearts’ which He provides by the Holy Spirit.

So, as we grow into a life of prayer without ceasing, we are growing in a life of conscious fellowship with the Holy Trinity: with the Father, to whom we prayer and who hears us; with the Son, in whose name we pray, and in whose merit we trust; and with the Holy Spirit, by whom we pray, who lifts our prayers to heaven, and who brings the assurance of heaven to our hearts.

1. Before praying for anyone, or any cause, the spirit must be free towards God and Man.

2. We should not talk about any person, without being able to pray for such at the same time.

3. When praying, we should be on our guard not to be the accusers of the brethren. Avoid the spirit of condemnation while praying. It is the devil's work to accuse the brethren.

4. While praying, we ought to know how to deal with the cause of the wrong, then with the effect.

5. While praying, we must be always open to be searched by the Spirit as to our narrow-mindedness, and let Him enlarge our hearts towards all. The throne that we approach is universal. The Holy Spirit in His divine agency is universal, so we much be possessed with a universal heart. We are indebted to all.

6. Prayer must not be pointed at persons, but about persons for their good.

7. Prayer must be definite; never pray at random.

8. We must be prepared to fulfill our own prayers, when the Will of God had revealed in prayer what our part is.

9. The hills before us may appear clear and near, but the valley between may be dark and isolated. To climb to its summit may be very difficult. The visions of truth on the hills of revelation seem beautiful, admirable, and attractive, but to reach the heights requires perseverance and faithfulness to climb. To go down the dark valley of subjection and nothingness demands humility.

10. If we will allow God to humble us, He will not allow others to do it.

11. What appears to man to be our humiliation can, in the Will of God, be our exaltation in His due time. The way to the Throne is the Cross.

12. We cannot scold nor dragoon men to love Christ. It is not by dogs and sticks that the Good Shepherd leads the flock.

13. Christian influence is like the dew, refreshing; like the dawn, illuminating and invigorating.

14. It is like the light penetrating through the dark.

15. It is like salt purifying all with its influence, counteracting putrefaction. These agents all do their work quietly.

16. People that have their own schemes very often shut God out.

17. Troubles and trials are the goads to drive us to prayer. Prayer is the goad to drive them away.